Wicked and Wonderful by Valerie King Page B

uncommonly warm through the thin muslin.
    He searched each of her features in turn then let his gaze drift over her long, dangling locks.
    He slid his hands into her hair and took hold of thick portions of it. “I knew your hair would feel like this.” Leaning close, he added, “And it smells so fresh, like the earth after a day of rain.”
    “I washed it only this morning,” she whispered, her fingers loosening from about the dagger’s handle.
    “You smell of flowers,” he said, breathing against her neck so that chills raced up and down her side.
    She gasped faintly.
    She was reminded of the night in the orchard and she barely restrained a groan from escaping her lips. She should push him away. She should tell him to stop. She should use the dagger at once.
    Instead, she closed her eyes, released the weapon, and sighed with great pleasure for he was now kissing her neck, not precisely as he had on that first night, but with gentle and very moist touches of his lips in a long descending string.
    “Lavender,” he whispered.
    “Yes,” was her nearly incoherent response as she settled her arms over his back.
    He leaned back and bade her look at him, but her arms remained to encircle his neck. “Tell me what this power is that you have?” he asked
    She smiled, if sadly. “Only if you tell me what yours is over my ridiculously weak sensibilities. I had intended upon harming you.” Only then did she withdraw an arm from him in order to lift her pillow and expose the small weapon.
    His brows lifted but he smiled. “And you know how to use it properly?”
    “I have been taught by the men of the troupe, many of which come from the worst parts of London. Yes, my lord, I know how to use a dagger.”
    His smile did not dim but tenderness entered his eyes. Her arm returned to lie gently across his back.
    “Why do you speak as a lady of quality?” he asked. “Is this part of your acting abilities for it seems so natural to you.”
    How could she tell him the truth, a truth she had spoken to no one? Once she uttered Stolford’s name she knew it would be as a cry to him from the darkest places of the earth. His heart was evil and she dared not reveal to anyone who he was to her.
    Therefore, she said, “If you have found me in the midst of an acting troupe, then whatever my story, it cannot be a good one. Suffice it to say, that for eight years this has been my home and these people my family.”
    “I suppose you are right. It hardly matters.”
    “The minutes are passing, my lord. You should leave now.” But she did not want him to go.
    He narrowed his gaze as though filled with a hundred thoughts at once. “I made a promise to Mrs. Ash that I would do so, but not just yet.” Before she knew what he was about, he rose, pulling her up with him, and took her in his arms and kissed her.
    Judith felt just as she had in the orchard, as though each of her joints had suddenly melted within her. Her legs could no longer support her and she was convinced she would have fallen had he not held her so tightly. Perhaps she should try to resist him, but there was something about Kelthorne that revealed the deepest longings of her heart, a yearning for the life she had forsaken so many years ago.
    Therefore, she held him tightly, clinging to him as he searched her lips and then her mouth, tasting of her and exploring her in a way she had thought never to experience. Was this love, her heart asked? Surely that was impossible for she scarcely knew him just as he knew little of her, but, oh, how sweet was the delight of embracing this man and feeling the strength of his arms about her.
    In truth, no one really knew her. Though Margaret understood her best of all, even she was not privy to the deepest secrets of her heart. Could she ever reveal such depths of desire to Kelthorne?
    Perhaps not in words for she hardly knew him, but she could speak her heart in how firmly she wrapped her arms about his neck, how forcefully she returned